Election AM in Virginia: A Blip, a Freakout & Kool-Aid

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — One of the worst things about the way the finagling with the franchise has affected the credibility of our elections is that, on a day like this, everyone starts jumping at shadows. (At the Miami-Dade election headquarters today, the computer crashed almost immediately after the doors opened.) Nonetheless, the logistical problems are real, starting in Virginia this morning, and they are growing, and almost nobody believes in accidents anymore....

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WTOP has received multiple phone calls from voters in the Fredericksburg area about voting at Lee Hill Elementary School and the Lee Hill Community Center. At Lee Hill Elementary School in Fredericksburg, early voters told WTOP all of the electronic voting machines were broken, and that polling workers only had 50 paper ballots available. Callers said hundreds of people have been turned away. The Freelance-Star reports the problems have been resolved. An election official says the elementary only had a voting machine for the first Congressional district. Election official John Adams tells The Freelance-Star says it was "human error." The school should have had machines for the first and seventh districts. As of 7:55 a.m. Tuesday, that problem was resolved. The seventh district voting machines are now operating. Hundreds remained in line waiting to vote, but the problem has been fixed.

Elsewhere in northern Virginia, my daughter, Molly, who is working in Washington this semester, voted for the first time today. She chose to vote in Virginia, rather than in Massachusetts, because Virginia's a battleground and Massachusetts is not. She got to the polling place at six. Here's her report:

As a good little daughter of democracy, I woke up at the crack of dawn today, put on my favorite blue dress, red patent leather pumps, and walked to my polling place in Crystal City, Arlington, Virginia.

I got to Water Park towers, an apartment building not too far from my own, and was greeted by a line that snaked around the great front hallway three times before entering the voting room. According to one man, he had never seen anything like this for local elections. I guess it takes the fate of the nation for people to swallow their pride and admit to living in Crystal City. One very elderly man wearing a Reagan Air Force One baseball cap was sitting in a chair practically comatose staring at the line. I suggested to the man next to me that we maybe should help our elder and he politely responded that he was probably working and that they "use a lot of retired people to do these things." And then we had reached the first curve of the snake.

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At this point, I was just plainly disappointed in Election Day. There were no riots or crazy displays. Maybe the people of Crystal City are far too civil. Yes, in fact I have noticed that the line is long. Wow, that is a very cool cellphone. No, there is no EZ-Pass line, though I commend you for at least being witty. I accepted copies of the proposed Virginia constitutional amendments and the referendum offered to me. That at least gave me something to read. And then I was at the second bend.

Apparently, eminent domain is what Virginians are worried about this cycle. The man next to me tried to get my sheltered Massachusetts self to understand that what they have done in Arlington is the equivalent of getting rid of "cool bars and dives" in Boston to put up condos with "a Chipotle, a dry cleaner, and a nail salon in the basement." He had me convinced until he threw Chipotle under the bus. I had then passed the entrance to the voting room for the second time and the tease just evoked fear that I was going to check the wrong box and single handedly swing the state of Virginia the wrong way. And then I was at the third bend.

After several minutes of more alternating silence and groans, I heard a man say, "They should have refreshments or something for us," and his brother reply, "Well, they do. They have Kool-Aid right inside the door and they want to make sure you're drinking it." I am sorry if what I am about to say is in poor taste, but these men were less excited to vote than those poor people were to drink the "Kool-Aid." Welcome to America, where we forget how many people lost their lives for our right to vote and are happier to stand in line to get a discount on a TV on Black Friday than we are to patiently wait patiently to vote. Suddenly, I was at a fourth bend that had gone previously unnoticed.

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I was in pure silence for the next straight-away until that helpful man next to me told me how unexcited he was for the "third-world check-in procedure." Finally I had reached the entrance to the voting room. I was checked in by a nice young man who used his third-world iPad to tell me that I was, in fact, in the right place and that I had the choice between voting with the electric ballots or the paper ones. Feeling truly democratic, I chose the paper ones. This was it, the moment I had been waiting for the past 19 years of my life. My first presidential election. I walked my red patent leather pumps to a booth and sat down. And I, Molly Doris-Pierce, voted for the President of the United States of America. I was so excited.

Democracy, Fk yeah.

---ELECTION DAY ON THE POLITICS BLOG: LIVE FROM EVERY SWING STATE...

• FLORIDA: Charles P. Pierce with the Voting-Rights Watchdogs • OHIO: Mark Warren Traveling with Governor John Kasich (and with Romney) • NEW HAMPSHIRE: Margaret Doris in 5-Vote Territory (and with Romney) • VIRGINIA: Elizabeth Sile in the Uncertain Suburbs • NEVADA: Jason Whithed in Sheldon Adelson Country • WISCONSIN: Joe Tarr with the Trained Poll-Watchers • NORTH CAROLINA: Aaron Gwyn on the Church Hereafter • IOWA: Kyle Minor on the Last-Minute Battleground Road Trip • COLORADO: Sam Levin at the Last Victory Party (and with Obama and Romney) • ...AND PENNSYLVANIA: Isaiah Thompson on the Blue State That Would Be Red

PLUS: Tom Junod in Chicago with Obama, Margaret Doris in Boston with Romney... and John H. Richardson in Breezy Point with Sandy Victims Voting

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